But life wasn’t going to let me put the cap on this semester that easily. Ever since I re-enrolled in college I’ve been feeling as if there’s some sort of unspoken trial going on, and the universe is placing obstacles at every step to see if I’ll throw up my hands in frustration. Flat tires, sick kids and limited fuel funds have all made me late or absent more times this semester than I was comfortable with. Today would be no different.

As we were on our way home from lunch to drop her off, another driver gestured to roll down the window and informed us that my driver’s side tire was flat. I pulled into a gas station to discover that there was a screw in the tread. I aired it up and it held long enough to drop off my mother and get us home to switch cars. Thank Goddess.

At home I had a minute of trouble finding my keys (left them in my other jacket this morning after taking Sebastian to school) and we were on our way. Of course then I realize that despite us being now almost 15 minutes late, I was going to have to stop for gas because the tank was on E.

Now 20 minutes late, Charlie and I are driving to school and I can smell something burning under the hood… I tell myself it’s probably just a belt that needs replacing. We make it to school, barely getting Charlie to the bathroom before he has an accident -again, thankful for that.

I half speed-walk in between jogging a few steps at a time until I finally find myself at the darkened door of a large empty lecture room in the basement at DuSable Hall, NIU. The place is abandoned -but I know the professor’s office is just a few buildings over. He has been so patient with me this semester, coming late so frequently and missing a quiz early in the semester. I have struggled in-class to show him that his tutelage is extremely important to me, and that I am enjoying the content of his lectures. He is there, graciously accepting my paper and returning my last quiz. I got a 95. He tells me he enjoyed having me in class, and I feel a sense of relief and gratitude at the mercies of fate and professor Cassidy.

Finally, walking across campus to find a warm computer lab to nestle up in and write this blog, I can enjoy the chilly bite of the wintry wind on my cheeks. The remodeling of Cole Hall is nearly finished, and my work for this semester is done. Even my dissatisfaction at having flown by the seat of my pants for most of the academic year is settling down. Next month I’ll start my last semester as a college student, and prepare myself for the next stage in my life. I will accomplish the thing my father set before me in the last words we ever shared. I will make him proud.

To be fair, I haven’t really worked at keeping it from you -there have been plenty of hints. My postings tend to ramble, that is a given, between many topics already -parenting, writing, school, depression, attention deficit disorder, politics, etc. This list could go on for days, honestly. Over the years my blogging has evolved from something extremely personal to something moderately personal and bordering on relevant to anybody else who’s browsing the web for something to spend a few minutes reading. My secret is that I am more than just a student, a mother, a writer and a weekend DJ.

I am also a Sith Inquisitor.

That’s right, I don’t just have a thing for bad boys (who doesn’t, really?) -sometimes I wanna be the bad girl, too. Don’t get me wrong -I would never strangle you with the power of my mind and a pinching hand gesture, or use force lightning to reduce you to a whimpering fool (unless you ask for it).  I just really love to play Massive Multiplayer Online games like the brand-spanking-new (still in Beta) SWTOR, and the darkside is usually better. Aside from their consistent false promises of having cookies (I have STILL never tasted these darkside cookies everyone’s raving about) they get to do a lot of nasty things in the storyline for each class of character. Dark side points are awarded for particularly snarky responses or selfish choices in NPC conversations. You actually get to CHOOSE what response your character will give to the NPC/mission contact when you’re playing.

That’s one of the things that really sets this game apart from others I’ve played (Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, Dungeons & Dragons Online…) and makes it feel like I’ve finally come home. Vanguard stands out more than the rest of my sordid past game-loves, for at least having the parlay option with other NPC’s… but it always irritated me that I was playing a card game to get points for socializing -and there was little to no ACTUAL story-driving conversation going on in the process. Granted, I haven’t played that game in ages -maybe it’s improved.

Another great thing about SWTOR (and yes, there’s Epic Advice for that other game most of you have heard about -World of Warcraft) is that there are collaboratively edited sites to help you on your way with user-generated questions and answer regarding everything in-game from finding specific items to choosing the best skill tree for your toon. For SWTOR, that site is called R2-Db and now that they’ve partnered with TORhead (delinquent cousin of that other game’s help site, WOWhead) there are virtually no questions that should go unanswered. The power of the force is with you in all things.

Now that the beta is rolling for yet another weekend, I’m anxious to finish writing assignments and DJing this evening so that I can crawl straight into my office (I can sleep when I’m dead) and get another fix of SWTOR. I played my inquisitor to level 13 last weekend (I’m a busy woman, don’t judge) and toyed around with an Imperial Agent who’s now around level 6 I think… the agent is definitely in the running for becoming my main after launch, but the whole game is just plain fun. I can’t wait to try all the angles.

Take all that excitement you felt as a kid watching the yellow text scroll away into deep  space while John Williams music charged your blood and multiply it by the narcissistic joy of knowing that YOU are going to be the main character in the space epic that’s about to unfold. Then you shake it up (not stir) with the asthetically inspiring graphics and game environments BioWare has put into this masterpiece of MMORPG’s and you’ve got an idea what Star Wars: The Old Republic is like. Or you could check out the trailer for Imperial Agents below.

I guess the only way to find out for sure, though… is to come and play.

But my problems with funding college are for another entry. Today was a day for new adventures, which are always an irresistable draw away from the things I should be doing at any given time. Today I tried a new combination of nail polish colors (and chunky glitter -because I refuse to act my age), I wore actual makeup (which I have already absent-mindedly rubbed into my right eye ) and I activated the developer preview of Facebook’s new Timeline feature, which may or may not debut for all users on December 9th.

The first few blogs I looked at piqued my interest because I love to document (obviously) little details of living and then look back at them years later and marvel at whatever mindset I was in at the time. The process of activating it is fairly simple if you are savvy, and involves installing the developer app (technically the preview is for developers only -oops) and half creating a fake app.

The local Tea Party counter protests Occupy Rockford.

They joined a Facebook group that seemed initially legit, as far as being part of the petition of government for a redress of our grievances, concerning the influence of corporate interests on our system of government, and the funding of our electoral process by these same corporate interests. Isn’t that fairly close to what we all want right now?

Some of us undoubtedly want far more than that, when all is said and done. That is understandable -but the journey of 1,000 steps begins with just one. Ultimately, we must all agree to recognize that the current atmosphere in America is overcast. You are either faced with the harsh reality of life as a citizen who cannot earn what is necessary to support a modest living or you are just comfortable enough to distract yourself from these problems by blaming them on their victims.

The forum was created to give Facebook users a group where they could discuss the ideas and events surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement in NYC. Groups were just beginning to spring up back then, with the intent of planning direct real-time actions. In October of 2011 I created, invited people to and tended the group, adding other admins who volunteered at the General Assembly on the 17th. Over time it grew and changed and went from ugly to beautiful and back again. Names were called, words were flung back and forth and ears seemed more and more often to simply nail themselves shut. I myself was removed as admin and added back in time.

The curious onlookers, silent in their majority, had come for something that they didn’t find. They wanted to see hope for the future, a banner to rally under… they wanted to know what they could do to make this right. I mistakenly thought that those who were passionate enough to look for contact with like minded others would also be passionate enough to put the cause before the drama. This has not proven to be the case.

Energy is hemorrhaging from this petty infighting and posturing, and it is energy that could be so much better spent that it breaks my heart to see it. Almost as heartbreaking as deleting more than 200 people I hadn’t even had a chance to talk with about the notion of Occupation. These were strangers and friends alike.

A professor from a college course I took 8 years ago, a friend I haven’t seen in years, someone I went to high school with… all of them clicked away for everyone’s best interest. They are now free of the self-stoking of other people’s egos or the contentiousness of so many who post as if they are the best of us all, and the most qualified to respond to everything. They are free from the endless threads, stretching on for 70, 80 or even 100 comments with the same 3 to 5 people snarking each other and flaming anyone who happens to bring common sense to bear.

I have been having real-life conversations with people around me for weeks now about how they really are intrigued by what’s happening in our country, and they’d consider being a part of it if it wasn’t for the ridiculous antics they’ve been watching on the Facebook forum. They are almost a captive audience -waiting in the wings we have had an army watching us and shaking their heads at how silly it was to have hoped for a direction to march in.

That’s what the forum ended up doing, in the long run. It wrecked our hope. When I created it, I wanted there to be an actual group (not a PAGE) that would allow everyone to speak as themselves in a forum. Something they could JOIN rather than “like”. As the group populated rapidly, I saw so many others who had been waiting for something to be a part of. I had wanted to take part in the change for years, seeing the way our country condones and participates in the channeling of money into one very small bracket of the American populace. The 99% movement is very real and very close to my heart, because I have felt the humiliation of being a stereotype and having little hope for the future. Even now, as I begin to lift myself up to take part in something, I feel better and see options where there were none before.

Real or imagined, the Occupation of Wall Street in New York City has started a change in the whole world’s consciousness. We can NO LONGER allow ourselves to be pitted against one another while the men behind the velvet curtains shuffle off to the vaults. We are the vast global majority and we MUST locate and take advantage of our strengths as a whole. We are consumers, we can each make changes in our lifestyles and activities to help further these goals as well.

Many of us are also voters, and as hopeless as it may seem to change the mind of a representative who’s been bought and sold -we have to continue to make our voices heard. Eventually we could create a wall of sound that would drown out the ch-ching of their cash registers and force them to recognize they are outnumbered. This is a challenge that we CAN meet head-on, but only if we are together in the charge.

My local General Assembly voted to remove the forum and fall back on actual involvement at the official website or in person. As the Dr. Frankenstein of this particular Facebook creation, I was relieved to put this monster to rest.

I sincerely hope that many or more of those who were freed from membership in that social networking nightmare will come back together elsewhere and continue the discussions that need to be had all over this country. Whatever happens online just please, please, please… don’t forget that we are all part of the 99% here, regardless of how savvy we may be with words on a screen. In the real world, we are all on the same barge and it’s been sinking for years -this may be our last chance to get off.

Let’s all do something to change the world, whether we’re in a group or all alone. If you feel that you’ve lost something in the deletion of this group -I’m sorry for that. But I can guarantee you that commenting on Facebook posts is one thing that will NOT help you accomplish that dream.

Most people these days hear statements like that and they laugh at the declarative utterance of common sense. Some giggle also because it should go without saying that a person’s ability to change the world has to begin with understanding the world as it truly is… and yet we constantly make decisions as human beings based on the subconscious presumptions we’ve been programmed to reference during our judgmental processes.

As a young Evangelical Christian, I was conditioned to accept allusions to the vicarious nature of a woman’s existence. Through her husband she would affect the physical world, through her children she would affect the future, through her adherence to God’s law she would affect the souls of those around her. She is a creature with the built-in reflex to nest and nurture, to obey laws and to seek protection from the male influences in her life. Rare indeed were the open-faced attacks on the feminine element in my church family, but even those occasionally had their floor. A woman who disrespects her husband disrespects God, her personal desires were temptations planted by the devil to lead her astray and make her the kind of woman who could not derive joy from bearing children and keeping the house. She was either selfless or sinful, but her struggle was often outlined in very specific terms as being quite different from that of a man. Somehow his trials and tribulations managed to remain various and sundry, and only occasionally found themselves under the microscope of the congregation.

Strangely enough, it was not this sort of marginalization that led me to leave the structure of Sunday morning church for a spiritual path of my own design. It was not until after I had already begun my studies into alternate searches for divine truth that I realized how strongly ingrained those subtle assumptions had become. Years later, in fact, I very gradually began the process of recognizing and removing those beliefs that had not come from my experiences of the world or the spiritual place that guides me through intuition. I still toil along that road today; still finding the misplaced ideas and stereotypes that don’t belong and still struggling to work out a genuine understanding and response that I can stand by. It is the only way, in my opinion, to live with integrity.

We must, as a culture, be willing to do this with our political awareness on a regular basis. The world is constantly changing along with the people and situations in it. Just as you or I are not the people we were ten or fifteen years ago, neither are the communities we live in or the systems that keep order within them the same. As the world around you changes, can you honestly say that you have made it your goal to understand what you can, to explore what is affecting you in the present and further look into what might affect you in the future?

Looking backward, the past twenty years seem to have been the glory days for a certain segment of our society, and while they’ve been building up to the horrifying crescendo we are currently experiencing -who has held the curtain shut? The world has become so much bigger, swollen with the flow of information in a constant ever-changing stream that turns certain stories into snow in the background while the hands of mainstream corporate news outlets plow other stories straight into public consciousness. We see whatever they get paid millions of dollars to show us. Presidential candidates, product retailers and media moguls alike have self-interest and profit at the top of their priority lists, and yet we assume that we know what’s going on because we’ve taken a few minutes to check the headlines.

Local news and public broadcasting are under attack, education is faltering further every year and the working class hasn’t been this politically divided since the civil war. The conglomerates have each presented a variety of scapegoats to hide behind and while we spiral downward into poverty and crime, we bang away at each other instead of the entities holding the knives to our throats. We suffer in such varying degrees that they have led each strata of socio-economic status to find comfort in looking to the ones above and striving to get there, and to blame it’s struggles on the one below for being too heavy a burden tugging at our elbow.

Ambition has taken our society to heights that few could have imagined -and yet it has now turned us into a nation of bad Samaritans who would sooner cross the road to avoid a drowning man than get our clothes wet saving a life. We are led to believe that a drowning man will pull us down with him, and some of us believe it so strongly that we’d rather walk away than risk the gamble. Certain death or suffering is more acceptable than the possibility of social discomfort -as long as it’s someone else’s death or suffering.

We must be the change we want to see in the world; but we must also be willing to choose the right thing, no matter how small, and stick by that choice regardless of convenience. Occupy Wall Street may be confusing to many Americans while the concept of the 99% seems implausible in it’s inclusiveness -but this movement has already begun to accomplish the one thing that matters most to our future as a nation.

We are all cracking open the front doors of our minds, peeking out around the door frame, and wondering who it is that rang the bell. We are starting to pay attention to the things that have been wrapped in velvet curtains for far too long. We are beginning to wake up.

My education complications have been slowly un-knotting themselves, but I hesitate to go into detail there, lest something unpleasant pop up later and surprise me. Suffice it to say, my worst case scenario at this point will be having to wait until August of 2012 to actually recieve my degree. Considering how uncertain I’ve been in the last 5 years that I’d EVER finish school… this is an ample blessing. Thanksgiving month is definitely filling my cup and then some.

Just for kicks, I started my own online newspaper called The Daily Diamond. Original, I know… but I figured my blog and my paper.li site could easily be linked (this blog will be featured on the paper when I post an entry) and I liked the title enough to use it twice. It’s basically populated with stories I feel are relevant and timely, and at times entertaining. Mostly it’s politics, technology and quirky mom bloggers. If that doesn’t suit your fancy in one way or another… then you must be an alien.

My employment situation has remained relatively stable, if not entirely lucrative. There is a full moon on this horizon, however, in that I just got a position writing for Examiner.com as the spirituality examiner for my local area. This is outstanding, in my opinion, and although I have yet to actually turn a profit it is really exciting to be published by an outside entity (still love you, WordPress & LiveJournal) and start building a portfolio (myRSS feed, anyone?).

Spirituality is something that has always been extremely important to me, and though I sometimes struggle to find time for it I have always recognized my need for a relationship with the divine. I hope that you’ll check out my content, which is currently only one article. You may (or may not) be surprised by the places my writing will eventually go… I hope either way you find it pleasant or uplifting. At the very least, I’ll try and highlight local spots and groups for fellowship with other spiritual folks. It’s hard living in a town with more churches and bars than just about anything else, and keeping your nose out of the broom closet.

Feel free to let me know how I’m doing on all this stuff. Comments keep me excited about producing good content when I feel the urge to just stay in bed and hide from the kids (and work and school) all day.

Behind Tea Party Lines.

The sidewalk in front of Chase bank was bare but for a few empty-handed strangers looking over the flag line, and the sparse carpet of leaves that had collected in the cracks and crevices of the pavement.

I balanced my bag on the newspaper dispenser outside City Hall, noting the quiet and the empty building just a block away from the location of the planned Occupy Rockford protest. It was about 12:20.

Just as I began snapping pictures of the flags and the bank sign and the Tea Party supporter in Revolutionary War period costume, the motley band of protesters came into view way down by the State Street bridge. They marched from Beattie Park that day, led by a veteran in full urban camo -holding a giant pole with a cannon on it’s full-sized flag and the words, “Come And Take It”.

401 E. State St.

I crossed the street a few times that day, looking for better camera angles and trying to fit the whole of both crowds into frame, but my heart and mind remained on that cracked and broken sidewalk in front of the cold stone structure that housed JP Morgan’s local Chase branch. I had been in the guts of that building once as a child, on “Take Your Daughter To Work Day”. My mother had worked in the basement when it was owned by Bank One, stuffing handfuls of envelopes into a machine that slit them open and then pulling the checks out to enter them by hand into a chunky IBM computer. She had earned just slightly more than minimum wage for it, but it was an extra paycheck for our family until electronic banking became popular and envelope-openers all over the country were no longer needed.

The 99% marched up the street towards us calling out and repeating phrases like, “Show me what democracy looks like! THIS is what democracy looks like!” carrying signs and flags and cameras of their own.

We are the 99%

About 200 people came up the hill that morning, from the chilly right-leaning shadow of the Rockford Register Star building. They reached the sidewalk in front of Chase bank and occupied the whole of it, raising each other’s energy levelwith drums and more chants and whistles and exchanges with drive-by onlookers. Many honked and thumbed up or down, some raised a fist out the window in solidarity with the 99% united, a few raised middle fingers or scowled quietly while staring straight ahead at the stop light. Most seemed excited or supportive and a few even gaped in surprise, squinting to read the signs as if they were completely unaware of the globally promoted day of occupation that people in over 1500 cities worldwide were participating in, even as we came together on an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon in downtown Rockford.

The Tea Party scoots in for their big scene.

The Tea Party counter protest was a modest, mostly respectful affair, across the street. They had about 30 people in all, and at one point the whole group was ushered together to give the impression of a tightly-packed crowd behind the interviewee for a local TV news outlet.

They sang “God Bless America” (we joined in when we heard it) and watched our chanting shouting mass of true diversity -retired folks, musicians, young, old, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, working, unemployed, domestic, career oriented- as we met and talked and cared so much about our country and way of life that we were willing to stand elbow-to-elbow with total strangers and attract their enmity by our very presence.

Eventually they rolled up their flags and left en masse. Occupiers shouted thanks to them for coming down, genuinely believing that despite the Tea Party’s top-down trickle of mis-information and corporate funding they were still a part of the same 99% and helping to raise awareness of the root problem that ultimately brought all of us to that place on that day.

The power of corporate greed has corrupted the American way of life.

The Occupy Rockford movement stayed another hour or so, eventually marching to the park for a General Assembly and then back to the bank to stay the night, albeit in much smaller numbers. The movement exists both out there on the sidewalk and in the virtual world, with online points of contact like occupyrockford.org and on Facebook with 2 groups and a community page. Sympathizers can commit as much or as little time as they are able -but every little bit is helpful and appreciated. Whether you’re able to camp out on the sidewalk in true occupation any given night of the week, or write a few insightful comments online in defense of our true purpose, it matters and we thank you for it. No effort is too small.

This group of American citizens has no leaders, no political affiliation, and no corporate sponsors.

We are not spoken for by our Tea Party opposition or the local media that has quietly slanted headlines and camera angles in support of them.

A local reporter sets up her shot away from our crowd, with the Tea Party visible in the background. Fair and balanced?

We speak for ourselves by our occupation, by our unity and by our respect for each other and even our opposition.

We cannot be defined by the least of us, or even by the greatest.

We are the 99% of this country who are NOT thriving or benefiting from the gradual dismantling of the American working class.

We are you, and you are welcome to join us.

With all the running around I have to do on any given day (between my own classes, the kids’ schedules and my sporadic work schedule) I have become dependent on food that I can acquire and/or eat while driving from one place to the next. I often don’t feel like cooking when I am home, only because I’m tired at that point and just want to rest from all the running around. It is a condition that is both my own fault and a result of the actions I’ve had to take to keep my family living in the current splendor (/sarcasm) we enjoy today.

Part of me wants to just sell everything we own (for whatever meager price we can get) and run away to somewhere else. Starting over always sounds so exciting, except when I think about how little opportunity there is left for someone who’s been a SAHM and (at times)  student for the last 10 years.

Without a degree or an established skill (writing? pfft.) to tout, I’m left only with my spotty and often times laughable job history to sell myself to employers. Top that off with the fact that I have a family that at some point is probably going to cause me to need personal time, and that younger person with little work ethic and even less experience is looking pretty good. If it weren’t for my ability to construct a good story, I’d look pretty lousy on paper. This isn’t to say the story is untrue… far from it.

The fact of the matter is that I have quite a few skills that an employer would be grateful for, if he or she could see me in action. The problem, however, is that these skills usually come secondary to the paper that verifies I have the chutzpah to stick to an academic program for 4 years or that some muckity-muck has christened me “able” to perform them.

School, as always, is a source of great enjoyment and far greater uncertainty for me. The financial factor, it seems, should be something you get credits for -since it usually involves so much MORE intense study, fortitude and perseverence to get loans for school. Even worse, once you’ve acquired funding you had better truck all the way through that bachelors, because taking a break will only make it that much harder to get back in.

I guess what I’m saying is that the weekend is almost over, and that old feeling of dread mixed with unfathomable hopelessness is creeping back into my heart. I don’t want to open the pile of letters with three difference conflicting messages about my loan consolidation. I’m even less excited about the Bursar’s office writing to tell me I won’t be enrolling next semester until I cough up around $5,000 for tuition and the first two months of child care I’ve already used.

Monday’s a holiday, it’s not even here yet, and I already don’t want to think about it.

Maybe we can’t say whether it will be good or bad just yet -but the path to it is already becoming tumultuous. Steve Jobs passed away last night (#ripstevejobs), and my twitter feed erupted. My facebook wall was awash with people’s thoughts, opinions and messages of consolation to the Apple family and the Jobs family alike. Google+ chugged along, like always, a little bit slower in the same general direction.

Despite curiously inconsistent media coverage, the #OccupyWallStreet movement is growing in steam and participation, popping up smaller response protests in cities and towns all over America (including my own) and the progressive media are picking it up finally. CNN is nosing around, while Fox begins (continues?) the smear campaign against the working class citizens who populate the movement.

I have heard and seen the words “Civil War” uttered and typed several times in the last month or so. As a parent to two young children, this both disturbs and encourages me for the future. My oldest child was incubating (first trimester) when those planes struck the World Trade Center on 9-11 and I will never forget the simmering panic I felt that day. What would the world look like when my child turned 10 years old? Or 20? Next year seems to have been laid out by ancient history (Mayan history, anyway) as the end of one world and the beginning of something else.

Will we be here to see it? Can a change as dramatic as what the 99% seek ever happen peacefully? I truly hope it can… but either way I know this world has seen it’s share of beautiful compassion and experienced the cover-up of it’s equal but opposite all too often.

The 99% isn’t political. It’s not a democratic platform or a republican one. It doesn’t subscribe to a racial or a religious preference. It’s not even class warfare, really. If you aren’t on the Forbes list of the 400 richest people in America, you are PART OF IT.

YOU are the 99% and SO AM I. We struggle to make ends meet on $8 or $10 or $15 per hour. We sacrifice our time and our own dreams just so that our kids aren’t going to bed hungry. We roll up our sleeves and tighten our belts and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps so that billionaires don’t have to go without their established quality of life.

It is wrong. We aren’t going to continue living our lives for someone else’s profit. NOW is the time to make this right, and if this is the vehicle for changing things -then I will hug my babies close with one hand, and hold out the other to anyone else who’s willing to fight for justice in this world.

Opportunity isn’t going to beat a path to your door. When it is denied and hoarded away by a few -the rest of us must go out and make it for ourselves. This is our opportunity to be heard and make change. THIS is #OccupyWallStreet.